Preparing for a Workfront + AEM Integration: New to Workfront & AEM

If you’re new to Adobe Workfront and Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), the thought of integrating these two platforms can seem daunting. While that’s an understandable perspective, the good news is that it doesn’t have to be. With the right implementation partner and the right preparation for your integration, it can be a relatively painless process. We wanted to share some things that organizations, that are new to both Workfront and AEM, can do to prepare for a Workfront + AEM integration.

Before we do, it’s worth noting why it’s worthwhile to integrate these two platforms in the first place. After all, why would your digital asset management system need to have any crossover communication with your work management platform? The simple answer is efficiency. When these two platforms communicate, you can automate processes that would typically require duplicated human effort. You can learn more about this in our series on content workflow challenges.

In today’s business world, maximizing efficiency and ROI in technology is critical, and that’s why so many companies are taking the step to integrate Workfront and AEM Assets. At Hoodoo Digital, we know exactly what this process takes because we built the initial integration between Workfront and Experience Manager, and the truth is, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Below, we’ve outlined three steps that can help users that are new to both Workfront and AEM prepare their systems for a seamless integration. 

Step 1: Nail down your business workflow. What you need to do to prepare for a Workfront + AEM integration is establish the complete lifecycle of an asset from concept to delivery. Carefully outline (or flow-chart) all the critical players, stops, steps, data, and procedures that the asset will need to visit throughout its life. This may also result in multiple flow charts depending on the complexity of your workflows and systems. This information will be used first in Workfront to establish the correct creative or marketing brief. 

This step will be most effective if you are highly detailed in the workflow. While a step like, “add metadata” may seem small and inconsequential, it can actually be a crucial component to successful asset creation and searchability. This is why it’s important to get granular and be as detailed as possible when establishing your workflows. The information you establish here will help you identify exactly where you need Workfront to communicate and share information with AEM. 

Step 2: Determine what information needs to be tied to an asset(s): Asset storage is a critical component of your AEM + Workfront integration. In this type of integration, you will create fields in Workfront that will allow you to input data relevant to the asset, and then automatically propagate that data to the associated asset in AEM. This ultimately leads to a reduction in work because you don’t need to duplicate metadata entries with every asset as it transitions through its lifecycle. Instead, you simply input the metadata into fields in Workfront, and it is automatically tied to that asset in AEM.

There are a variety of data that may be relevant to an asset, including, who created it, who approved it, when was it approved, the project the asset belongs to, how much time it took to create this asset, and more. This data can provide key information for people who may search for that asset in AEM in the future, and it can all be synced from Workfront as you’re gathering information about an asset throughout its creation lifecycle. Integrating these two platforms to share asset metadata gives you a direct line to track the full ROI of your downstream marketing efforts. 

Step 3: Determine how your assets will be shared: The primary purpose of AEM is to provide you a means to edit and share information digitally through your website. As a result, you need to establish how you plan to share your assets internally, externally (with contractors, or audiences). This facet of the process will be crucial to ensuring that the appropriate internal and external parties have access to your assets at the appropriate times. AEM is built to manage all of these use cases and is designed to be the single source for housing all your digital assets and their associated metadata. 

If you take the time to set your systems up properly for integration, you’ll ultimately be able to use the connector to track metrics and data regarding your digital marketing workflow management. This can help you prove your ROI in technology and identify other areas and opportunities where you can become more efficient in your digital marketing strategy. 

Are you looking for an experienced implementation partner who knows the ins and outs of a Workfront + AEM integration?

We do. We’re Hoodoo.